“I think it’s beautiful. I’d love to get in on this recharging myself…”
“Don’t get too close, you idiot. There’s no seat for you here, Nokia.”
“Whoa! Ugh, you don’t have to kick me…”
Komae casually tried to get on Shibuya’s lap, but she kicked him away.
What was he thinking? You can’t reproduce the beautiful bond between brother and sister by playacting with the nearest girl. Anyway, no girl would want that. Where was his common sense?
Anyway, putting this silly conversation aside…
I explained to my friends what had happened in the Fashion Department.
Akiba was the first to speak after hearing the story.
“So the Sengoku camp made an offer to Azusa Harajuku, too… Well, if they succeed, our chances of winning are toast, right?”
“Right. That’s why we have to keep that from happening at all costs.”
“But no matter what we do, it’s Azusa Harajuku who’ll be the one making the decision, right? Will we be able to come up with a video that will convince her within one week from now?”
“It’s not ‘Will we be able to do it?’ We MUST do it! Er, somehow.”
Saying it out loud myself made me want to puke.
But the reality is, we didn’t have much time. If we couldn’t impress Harajuku enough to convince her to make our costumes, she’d end up becoming a designer for the Sengoku camp. If that happened, we’d never be able to win.
“Komae, please compose a piece of dance music as soon as possible. I’ll have Tatsuki Ootsuka knuckle down and come up with the choreography. Then we’ll shoot a video of Shiika and Shibuya dancing… We don’t have much time, but… Think you can do it?”
“No problem. If you’re in a hurry, I’ll finish it in one day.”
“One day?! Hey now, are you serious? You can compose a song in just one day?!” Akiba shouted, looking utterly stunned by Komae’s confident statement.
“Dance music, no lyrics? I can handle that. Of course, if you need lyrics, I’ll need a little longer.”
“Wow… Amazing! No wonder they call you the Five-Staff Prince!”
Akiba’s mouth was wide open, and she looked deeply impressed. Oh yeah, she’s meant to be a composer, too.
Not that she actually composes anything, I thought darkly. A girl who hasn’t even composed a single song can’t possibly have any concept of how long it would take.
Shiika trembled on my lap.
“One week…”
“You’re not confident?”
“So if we don’t try hard…we lose?”
“Probably.”
“Hmm…”
From my position, I could only see the back of Shiika’s head, so I had no idea what kind of expression she had on.
Nor could I guess at what she might be thinking.
After all, Shiika sees the world completely differently.
So I waited for her to speak next and didn’t try to analyze her.
“Honestly…I’d like to run away.”
“Because you don’t like exercise?”
“Yes. But it looks like fun, to dance.”
“Right.”
“If I learn how to dance, it’ll be fun. I know that, but I still want to run far away,” Shiika said.
“I see.”
I felt like I understood.
I don’t know anything about singing or dancing, but if you apply it to other stuff, I can kinda see it.
For example, traveling abroad.
When I see beautiful scenery in videos and tourists having fun, I start thinking how fun it would be to travel. But if it actually came down to it, I would need a passport, English-language skills, and all sorts of other preparations… It would be a major hassle.
Even if you can see the joy of the results, it’s only natural to want to flee from the painful process.
“Then do you want to run away?”
“…”
Silence.
I had my own conclusion I’d like to draw.
But I held back my true feelings and waited for Shiika to voice her thoughts.
After spending a lot of time conversing silently with herself, Shiika slowly opened her mouth.
“…I’ll do my best.”
“Okay. Then we’ll do our best, too.”
“Yeah.”
I patted Shiika’s head. Good job on putting your feelings into words, Sis.
“Hmm!” Shibuya was watching us with a look of admiration.
Maybe it was just my imagination, but it looked like she was also smirking.
“You’re a good older brother at least, aren’t you, Gakuto?”
“Guess you caught me. Well, you know, we all want to hide our light under a bushel. But I guess I just can’t keep my good big-brother aura from showing through.”
“Ah-ha-ha. Sure, sure, let’s just go with that.”
Shibuya smiled, looking like she was in high spirits.
I wasn’t sure why, but it seemed my standing with her had just improved a little bit.
Normally, whenever I dote on Shiika, she snorts and talks about how inappropriate it is.
A woman’s heart… Something I’ll never learn to understand.
…Although, I don’t really understand the minds of other people in general. It’s not really limited to just women…
A few days later, on Saturday.
The private Ryouran High School, with its many special facets that set it apart from other institutions in the world, was the same as any regular high school in the fact that Saturdays and Sundays were holidays. A holiday for the whole country. Ah, I would like to express my deep gratitude for the precious rights that Japanese workers have earned.
…But on a day when everyone was shutting themselves inside, Shiika and I left the house before noon.
How weird, you may think, for a shut-in brother-and-sister duo like us.
If we were well-known artists, this unusual movement of ours might have drawn paparazzi.
…No, surely not, though. After all, it wasn’t like we were doing anything odd or abnormal.
In any case, Shiika and I got on the train and headed to the urban area of town—the nearest station to Ryouran High School.
But our destination was not the campus itself.
It was the spacious park nearby.
The humid air of early summer mixed with the rich scent of flowers, with the smell of exhaust fumes some distance away. A forest, one that had suddenly appeared in the city. A negative space, like a donut hole, with no sign of man-made objects. And below the bridge, a muddy pond was visible.
“Sniff, sniff… Hmm.”
Shiika, sniffing away, screwed up her face.
“Smells…raw.”
“Well, we are in nature.”
“Let me refresh my nasal palate by sniffing you, Gak.”
“Nasal palate? Don’t just invent your own nonsense terms. We get enough of that.”
“But it’s a key skill for writing lyrics.”
“Well, I guess that’s true.”
Shiika, who had become accustomed to the greasy smells of the city, still seemed unfamiliar with nature smells like grass clippings and so on.
“Hey! Over here!”
After walking for a while, we saw a mixed group of teens in everyday clothes hanging out on benches all in a row under a big tree.
One of them, Tatsuki Ootsuka, was waving her hand and calling us over.
The others were, of course, the members of the Shibuya Gang.
In addition to Ootsuka, Akiba, Shibuya, and Komae were there.
“Uh, Gakkun, Shi, why are you wearing your school uniforms?”
Ootsuka let out a cry of surprise when she saw what we were wearing.
She had a point. Everyone except for Shiika and I wore their everyday clothes. Shiika and I were the only ones in our school uniforms.
“We don’t have any decent clothes. And we’ll change into training wear for dance practice anyway, so it didn’t seem like it mattered what we wore.”
“Well, that makes sense!”
Ootsuka agreed readily. She’s so straightforward. One of Ootsuka’s finest points.
“I didn’t expect the song AND the choreography to be completed by today. Both Komae and you did a great job, even though it was an unreasonable request,” I said to Ootsuka.
“Oh, it was easy! I love thinking up choreography, and I’ve got a whole catalog of moves to choose from!” Ootsuka replied.
“You were a huge help.”
Then Komae cut in, “Don’t worry about it, Gakuto, my man. After all, you promised you’d give me permission to go out on a date with Shiika if I could compose the music in time.”
“Oh, that’s fine. If you reincarnate in another world, I’ll approve your relationship.”
“Are you telling me to die in a roundabout way?”
“I thought I was telling you to die in a straightforward way, but it doesn’t seem like that came across?”
“Guh! You’re harsh, Gak.”
“Don’t call me Gak, you scum. Only Shiika can call me that.”
I smirked at the bothersome pest who always hung around Shiika… I mean, our dependable composer.
Then Shibuya lightly kicked Komae’s behind.
“What?! Hey, you’re picking on me, too, Erio?!”
“Things are stressful enough, so don’t go hitting on Shiika on top of everything else.”
“…Yes, miss. My bad.”
It seemed that even playboy Komae wasn’t able to stand up against his mad-dog partner of many years, Shibuya.
The guy acts like a flirtatious player, but I think it suits him better to be a sort of comic-relief character. Just watching him, I could tell there was a difference between the kind of guy he wanted to be seen as and the kind of guy he actually was.
“Keep your hands to yourself, and I won’t ban you from being friendly. But if you want to take things a step further, you should deal with those creepy ulterior motives of yours first, Komae.” I said, and looked at Shiika, who had been standing beside me and staring at the floor.
Shiika, the topic of conversation, said nothing. Noticing my gaze, she looked up quizzically at me.
A few days had passed since I asked Ootsuka to create the choreography and Komae to compose the music.
There was no news that the Sengoku camp had released new dance music, and of course, there was no news that Azusa Harajuku had agreed to design their costumes. I was relieved that we’d managed to come up with the dance and song in time for the day of judgment.
But even then, I still felt uneasy.
Though today was a Saturday, each member of the Shibuya Gang was here.
Our purpose was to shoot a video of the actual dance.
“But you know… Is this really going to work? The song and choreography were done in time, sure, but honestly, we haven’t had enough lessons, have we?” Akiba said, sounding dubious.
“It’s okay, ManaMana! It’s not a live event—it’s a video, so I’ll cover up any weak points in the dancing with some snappy video editing.”
“Wow, that’s pretty sly of you.”
“I mean, the best thing would be for everyone to dance perfectly, but y’know. We don’t have the time for that. Speed… Speed is what we need!”
“Hmm, I guess that’s true.”
Akiba nodded and backed down.
After that, we changed into training clothes in the park’s public restroom and regrouped on the grass.
Shiika, Shibuya, Akiba, and Komae lined up in a row in front of Ootsuka, who would play the role of instructor.
“Okay then, let’s do it!”
““““Yes!””””
Ootsuka’s shout was the signal. I set the music playing on my phone.
A lively track began to flow from my phone’s speaker.